Python 3.4’s last beta: Over the weekend, the last beta of Python 3.4 arrived. With two more release candidates and a final date of March 16, those interested should be testing now. The time scale was bumped by three weeks to allow last minute changes to the Argument Clinic, a DSL for parsing arguments, to settle in.

What’s also in 3.4? A new pathlib module, standardised enums, better object finalisation semantics, a C API for custom memory allocators, non-inheriting subprocess file descriptors, new statistics, asyncio and tracemalloc modules, a new hash algorithm for strings and binary data and better pickling. And of course, standardised use up “pip” as the package manager.

At this point, 5 Python Enhancement Proposals didn’t make the 3.4 cut – improved time zone database support and zip application support, the locallookup metaclass method, more unpacking generalisations and a key transforming dictionary are all pushed to after 3.4. For more details on whats in and out, check out the release schedule and the download page for 3.4 beta 3.

Python 3.3.4’s RC: There’s also a release candidate now available for Python 3.3.4 – details of fixes in the change log for that. Thats due for a final release on February 9, so not much time for final testing of the large wedge of fixes.

All About UEFI: There’s a lot of controversy, mostly unecessary or ill-informed, about UEFI’s boot process mainly down to it being confused with the optional SecureBoot element of UEFI that Microsoft lean on for validation. Adam Williamson, by day Red Hat Fedora QA, by night massive essay writer, has produced a huge and useful essay on what and how UEFI does its thing and the things it enables called UEFI Boot: How does that actually work then. Well worth a read.

Good idea, bad name: A shortened man page which just gives you examples? Sounds like a great idea. With a central repository for new pages? Excellent. And cross platform and packaged like a ‘gem’? Still with you. And you’re calling them “bro” pages. Oh, ah… this won’t end well. But good idea.